"Natural Science Center grows, adds SciQuarium
• Fresh exhibits, more species, a cafe and even a new name are part of the changes for 2013.
BY SUSAN LADD
susan.ladd@news-record.com
GREENSBORO • The sound of hammers, saws and drills have largely replaced the rumble of earthmovers and cranes on the grounds of the Natural Science Center of Greensboro. The SciQuarium has a real exterior now, and most work has shifted to the interior. But construction curtains and safety fences have popped up in other locations throughout the center as it readies for its biggest year since the opening of Animal Discovery in 2007 — perhaps its biggest year ever.
“We had a zoo before we opened Animal Discovery,” said Rick Bet-ton, director of exhibits and programs. “But we’ve never had an aquarium on this scale before. It’s a whole new ballgame.”
It’s also bigger in terms of the financial investment, the staff expansion and the sheer level of complexity that comes with a large aquarium operation, Executive Director Glenn Dobrogosz said.
Animal Discovery was a $5.5 million project, with a 30 percent staff increase. All told, the SciQuarium is an $11.5 million project that will expand the staff by 50 percent.
The opening of the SciQuarium, tentatively scheduled for mid-June, is certainly the biggest attraction coming this year. But there are plenty of other significant changes in store for the center in 2013, including its first-ever cafe, new exhibits in the Herpetarium and Animal Discovery, improvements to the tiger exhibit and a brand-new name.
The new name of the center will be unveiled in March, along with a new logo and signs. It will cre-ate a unified identity for a place that is often known by its various parts, Marketing Manager Steffany Reeve said.
“It’s going to be great,” Reeve said. “It will simplify who we are in one marketing message and show where we stand out.”
The Natural Science Center will be special in having an accredited museum, zoo and aquarium. Few facilities have all three.
“If you add in the Omni-Sphere theater, I don’t think anyone does,” Do-brogosz said. “When we unveiled the master plan years ago, that was the beauty of it. That reality is coming to be this year.”
The first project to be completed this year will be the renovation and expansion of the tiger exhibit. New regulations require higher walls, and the center used the opportunity to improve landscaping, security and space. That project is expected to be complete at the end of January.
Also this month, new species from Madagascar are coming to the Herpetarium, including giant day geckos, one of the largest gecko species, and tomato frogs, which get as round and red as the fruit they are named for. By the end of February, there will be a mixed exhibit of poison dart frogs, said Rick Bolling, curator of reptiles and invertebrates. Frank, a juvenile American alligator, is also a recent addition.
After the rebranding in March, a new species will be added to Animal Discovery, said Jessica Hoffman, curator of Animal Discovery. A red panda will take up residence in the space that used to house the lorikeets. Though it is a distant relative of the black-and-white giant panda, it looks more like a raccoon. It has a white mask that stands out in its red fur and a long bushy tail with red and white rings.
The cafe may open as soon as spring but certainly should be operating by the time the SciQuarium opens, Reeve said. Having a restaurant on site will not only be nice but necessary, Bet-ton said.
“The aquarium is going to add another hour or two to the visit,” Betton said. “You’re going to want to be able to stop and eat.”
The big splash comes in June, with the opening of the SciQuarium. The fish-ing cat exhibit now has the beginnings of a rock sculpture inside. This Asian feline literally taps the surface of the water to attract fish, then scoops them out with webbed paws or dives in after them. A feeding tube has been installed so visitors can watch live.
The Asian small-clawed otters now in Animal Discovery will be moved to an exhibit there and joined by an additional breeding pair. “We’re really hoping for babies, and they have lots of babies,” Hoffman said. “If we get a good successful birth, it will be mayhem in here with all those cubs running around.”
The SciQuarium will be the first institution to experiment with using brackish water for the otters — which reflects their hab-itat in the wild — instead of fresh water.
Visitors may be able to get face-to-face with some of the 13 African penguins, thanks to a rock ledge built right next to the front glass of that exhibit.
In the Amazon exhibit, there will be another anaconda — larger than the one that currently resides in the center’s Herpetarium. The center’s two-toed sloth will share the tree tops with Golden Lion Tamarins, a primate species with long golden hair and an impressive orange mane. This exhibit also may be home to lizards, birds and freshwater rays.
The largest tank will be devoted to an open-ocean exhibit, featuring sharks and numerous fish species.
Dobrogosz really is look-ing forward to the day the sharks arrive. But the ultimate moment for him will be when the SciQuarium is finally unveiled to the public.
“When that door opens for the first time, and moms and dads and donors walk in and say, ‘We get it,’” he said. “And the best part is, this is only phase one. We still have phase two and three. This is just the start.”
Phase two is museum reinvention and renewal. “We’ll take the oldest parts of the museum and transform them into a modern, state-of-the-art science center,” Dobrogosz said. “It will also include all the little things, like new bathrooms, floors, ceiling tiles.”
Phase three will double the size of Animal Discovery, with an endangered-species village called Sanctuary Station.
And because he’s always asking, “What’s next?” Dobrogosz is already drafting phase four.
“Not necessarily because I want to — though I do — but because you have to,” he said. “People today expect bigger, better, faster, more intense. What do you do to make them come back? You want to compel that audi ence to come out to you.”
In the meantime, the staff is running full-out to get everything ready for the centerpiece of phase one, the SciQuarium. It’s a chore just figuring out where to put everything.
Seventeen pallets of salt are waiting in the ware-house. Some of the animals for the new exhibits are already arriving and need to be housed in temporary space. But it’s all good, Betton said.
“What drives the people here is the reaction of the visitors to the things we work so hard to create,” he said. “That’s better than a couple of hours sleep. It’s great to work at a place where people appreciate what we do.”
Contact Susan Ladd at 373-7006, and follow @susankladd on Twitter.
WANT TO GO?
What:The Natural Science Center
When:Museum open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Animal Discovery open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily.
Where:4301 Lawndale Drive
Admission:Adults (ages 14-64) $8; Seniors (65+) $7; Children (3-13) $7; Children (2 and younger) free. Center members admitted free. Greensboro residents, military and college students get $1 off admission with valid ID.
Information:288-3769 or www.natsci.org "
Now imagine a Downtown Greensboro Aquarium 10 times this size and the economic development it could bring to Greensboro. Fish Man can.
• Fresh exhibits, more species, a cafe and even a new name are part of the changes for 2013.
BY SUSAN LADD
susan.ladd@news-record.com
GREENSBORO • The sound of hammers, saws and drills have largely replaced the rumble of earthmovers and cranes on the grounds of the Natural Science Center of Greensboro. The SciQuarium has a real exterior now, and most work has shifted to the interior. But construction curtains and safety fences have popped up in other locations throughout the center as it readies for its biggest year since the opening of Animal Discovery in 2007 — perhaps its biggest year ever.
“We had a zoo before we opened Animal Discovery,” said Rick Bet-ton, director of exhibits and programs. “But we’ve never had an aquarium on this scale before. It’s a whole new ballgame.”
It’s also bigger in terms of the financial investment, the staff expansion and the sheer level of complexity that comes with a large aquarium operation, Executive Director Glenn Dobrogosz said.
Animal Discovery was a $5.5 million project, with a 30 percent staff increase. All told, the SciQuarium is an $11.5 million project that will expand the staff by 50 percent.
The opening of the SciQuarium, tentatively scheduled for mid-June, is certainly the biggest attraction coming this year. But there are plenty of other significant changes in store for the center in 2013, including its first-ever cafe, new exhibits in the Herpetarium and Animal Discovery, improvements to the tiger exhibit and a brand-new name.
The new name of the center will be unveiled in March, along with a new logo and signs. It will cre-ate a unified identity for a place that is often known by its various parts, Marketing Manager Steffany Reeve said.
“It’s going to be great,” Reeve said. “It will simplify who we are in one marketing message and show where we stand out.”
The Natural Science Center will be special in having an accredited museum, zoo and aquarium. Few facilities have all three.
“If you add in the Omni-Sphere theater, I don’t think anyone does,” Do-brogosz said. “When we unveiled the master plan years ago, that was the beauty of it. That reality is coming to be this year.”
The first project to be completed this year will be the renovation and expansion of the tiger exhibit. New regulations require higher walls, and the center used the opportunity to improve landscaping, security and space. That project is expected to be complete at the end of January.
Also this month, new species from Madagascar are coming to the Herpetarium, including giant day geckos, one of the largest gecko species, and tomato frogs, which get as round and red as the fruit they are named for. By the end of February, there will be a mixed exhibit of poison dart frogs, said Rick Bolling, curator of reptiles and invertebrates. Frank, a juvenile American alligator, is also a recent addition.
After the rebranding in March, a new species will be added to Animal Discovery, said Jessica Hoffman, curator of Animal Discovery. A red panda will take up residence in the space that used to house the lorikeets. Though it is a distant relative of the black-and-white giant panda, it looks more like a raccoon. It has a white mask that stands out in its red fur and a long bushy tail with red and white rings.
The cafe may open as soon as spring but certainly should be operating by the time the SciQuarium opens, Reeve said. Having a restaurant on site will not only be nice but necessary, Bet-ton said.
“The aquarium is going to add another hour or two to the visit,” Betton said. “You’re going to want to be able to stop and eat.”
The big splash comes in June, with the opening of the SciQuarium. The fish-ing cat exhibit now has the beginnings of a rock sculpture inside. This Asian feline literally taps the surface of the water to attract fish, then scoops them out with webbed paws or dives in after them. A feeding tube has been installed so visitors can watch live.
The Asian small-clawed otters now in Animal Discovery will be moved to an exhibit there and joined by an additional breeding pair. “We’re really hoping for babies, and they have lots of babies,” Hoffman said. “If we get a good successful birth, it will be mayhem in here with all those cubs running around.”
The SciQuarium will be the first institution to experiment with using brackish water for the otters — which reflects their hab-itat in the wild — instead of fresh water.
Visitors may be able to get face-to-face with some of the 13 African penguins, thanks to a rock ledge built right next to the front glass of that exhibit.
In the Amazon exhibit, there will be another anaconda — larger than the one that currently resides in the center’s Herpetarium. The center’s two-toed sloth will share the tree tops with Golden Lion Tamarins, a primate species with long golden hair and an impressive orange mane. This exhibit also may be home to lizards, birds and freshwater rays.
The largest tank will be devoted to an open-ocean exhibit, featuring sharks and numerous fish species.
Dobrogosz really is look-ing forward to the day the sharks arrive. But the ultimate moment for him will be when the SciQuarium is finally unveiled to the public.
“When that door opens for the first time, and moms and dads and donors walk in and say, ‘We get it,’” he said. “And the best part is, this is only phase one. We still have phase two and three. This is just the start.”
Phase two is museum reinvention and renewal. “We’ll take the oldest parts of the museum and transform them into a modern, state-of-the-art science center,” Dobrogosz said. “It will also include all the little things, like new bathrooms, floors, ceiling tiles.”
Phase three will double the size of Animal Discovery, with an endangered-species village called Sanctuary Station.
And because he’s always asking, “What’s next?” Dobrogosz is already drafting phase four.
“Not necessarily because I want to — though I do — but because you have to,” he said. “People today expect bigger, better, faster, more intense. What do you do to make them come back? You want to compel that audi ence to come out to you.”
In the meantime, the staff is running full-out to get everything ready for the centerpiece of phase one, the SciQuarium. It’s a chore just figuring out where to put everything.
Seventeen pallets of salt are waiting in the ware-house. Some of the animals for the new exhibits are already arriving and need to be housed in temporary space. But it’s all good, Betton said.
“What drives the people here is the reaction of the visitors to the things we work so hard to create,” he said. “That’s better than a couple of hours sleep. It’s great to work at a place where people appreciate what we do.”
Contact Susan Ladd at 373-7006, and follow @susankladd on Twitter.
WANT TO GO?
What:The Natural Science Center
When:Museum open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Animal Discovery open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily.
Where:4301 Lawndale Drive
Admission:Adults (ages 14-64) $8; Seniors (65+) $7; Children (3-13) $7; Children (2 and younger) free. Center members admitted free. Greensboro residents, military and college students get $1 off admission with valid ID.
Information:288-3769 or www.natsci.org "
Now imagine a Downtown Greensboro Aquarium 10 times this size and the economic development it could bring to Greensboro. Fish Man can.
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